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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27093586">Dying Star</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karly_Quinn/pseuds/Karly_Quinn'>Karly_Quinn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Attempt to be poetic, Bittersweet, Every character that shows up is listed in case you missed the reference, Gen, Honor for Starscream, Optimus is alive because of RID, Several relationships are glossed over, Starscream dies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 03:33:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,395</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27093586</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karly_Quinn/pseuds/Karly_Quinn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"I, Optimus Prime Bearer of the Matrix of Leadership, solemnly declare Wing Lord Starscream a Knight of Cybertron. This honor has been bestowed upon very few, and never before to one who died a Decepticon. Nevertheless, I regret it was not bestowed in life. I was blind to who Starscream truly was and what he was really fighting for; I did not see how he was suffering. I cannot grant him second life, but I can give him this honor.<br/>"All hail Starscream, last Wing Lord of Vos, King of the Sky and leader of the Seekers."<br/>-Memorial speech given by Optimus Prime in honor of Starscream at the reopening of Vos and signing of the peace treaty with the Seekers</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Arcee/Cliffjumper (Transformers), Arcee/Knock Out (Transformers), Breakdown &amp; Knock Out (Transformers), Elita One/Optimus Prime, Knock Out &amp; Skyfire, Skyfire &amp; Starscream (Transformers), Skywarp &amp; Starscream &amp; Thundercracker (Transformers)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dying Star</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just to be clear, I hate every version where Starscream dies. But the inspiration struck me and I just had to write this... Also, this does not fit into any other universe I will ever write.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Knock Out hated the cold.</p><p>It was cold in the mines where he grew up. Cold was the first and last thing you felt before entering cryostasis for who knows how long. Cold was how a frame felt after all life had left it.</p><p>Cold never meant anything good.</p><p>He should have paid more attention when the Nemesis went cold.</p>
<hr/><p>Starscream hated the heat.</p><p>It reminded him of the stifling heat of the smelting pit as you threw in the bodies of your friends. Of the crackling flames as they burned Vos to ashes. Of the way a viroblade warped your armor just before it pierced your spark.</p><p>He should have left when he first saw the fire in Megatron’s optics.</p>
<hr/><p>Knock Out loved the ground.</p><p>It was solid and unmoving, reliable. It smelled of home, like old friends who had come to visit after a hard day’s work. It promised wide open roads where he could race to his spark’s content.</p><p>Knock Out loved the ground.</p>
<hr/><p>Starscream loved the sky.</p><p>The feeling of the cool air rushing past his frame, brushing away the burning in his limbs. The wide-open space where no one could catch him or criticize how he flew. The twinkling stars that promised better days. The freedom that came with rising above the haters down below.</p><p>Starscream loved the sky.</p>
<hr/><p>It was cold that night Breakdown died. The ground was stained with his Amica’s, his brother’s, energon.</p>
<hr/><p>The Predacon’s fire was hot. They tore apart the clouds with their great wings. They paid no heed to his screams.</p>
<hr/><p>Starscream’s frame was warm. He was lying on the ground, spark still pulsing faintly.</p><p>Knock Out’s hands were cool as they rested on his blistering helm. The medic’s helm looked pretty against the red sky.</p><p>“Shh, Star, everything will be fine.”</p><p>“I don’t want to die.”</p><p>“I know.”</p>
<hr/><p>The Nemesis was warm again with the laughter of friends.</p><p>But it couldn’t fill the hole in Knock Out’s spark.</p><p>It wasn’t fair that Starscream should be buried in the ground he so hated. But there were no fliers who could return him to the sky. There was so much that hadn’t been fair in the flier’s life.</p><p>Like Megatron’s hands, hands that had torn Starscream apart, and the fact the warlord still lived. Or the death of Starscream’s trinemates. Or the fact his city was burned and would be rebuilt by a bunch of ground pounders.</p><p>It wasn’t fair.</p>
<hr/><p>Cybertron rejoiced in the death of Starscream. They listed all his crimes and buried all his accomplishments. They overlooked any good he had ever done.</p><p>Knock Out hated it more than the cold.</p><p>So, he put the proverbial pen to paper and wrote Starscream’s story as it ought to be told.</p>
<hr/><p> Knock Out grabbed his Energon Prod and prepared to face another hater.</p><p>He had published Starscream’s biography himself. It had flown off the shelves for all the wrong reasons. To say the least, he was not very popular.</p><p>The shuttle outside did not look angry.</p><p>He looked sad.</p><p>“I was in stasis for a very long time” he began “and when I woke up there was a war going on. Everything had changed. Starscream…was different. He wasn’t the mech I had loved like a brother anymore. I didn’t understand what had happened. I asked why and no one would tell me. This…” he held up a datapad “explained everything.”</p><p>The shuttle finally looked up. “This means the world to me. I never knew how much I meant, and continued to mean, to him. I know you must have received a lot of hate for this and I just wanted to say…thank you.”</p><p>Knock Out smiled genuinely for the first time since Breakdown died. “Would you like to come inside?”</p>
<hr/><p>Arcee could not put the book down.</p><p>She had been ignoring its existence as best she could. Turning off the vidscreen when another talk show host started hating on it or images of Knock Out hiding from angry protestors outside his habsuite came on. Going out of her way to avoid bookstores where she knew it would be in the display window.</p><p>She hadn’t cracked until she caught Ratchet slumped in his chair, field filled with so many emotions it was unreadable, with the offending datapad in hand.</p><p>There was a statue of Cliffjumper, a proper memorial to replace the one destroyed at Outpost Omega.</p><p>There was nothing to mark the grave of Starscream besides a car door Knock Out had ripped off his own arm to use as a headstone.</p><p>Arcee had hated Starscream for killing Cliffjumper. She had been consumed with hatred for Arachnid after the death and torture of Tailgate.</p><p>Cliffjumper had interrogated Skywarp, shredding his wings apart one strip at a time and then leaving him to die. Cliff had ripped out Thundercracker’s spark casing and crushed it in his hand.</p><p>Starscream had felt every blow.</p><p>He had been plagued by nightmares of Skywarp’s final moments, alone in an abandoned Autobot cell. Of his spark giving out moments before Starscream arrived.</p><p>Starscream had given Cliffjumper a far quicker death.</p><p>Arcee had done far worse to those who had done much less to her.</p>
<hr/><p>Out in the wildlands of Cybertron, not far from the ruins of Blackrock, there is a grave.</p><p>The headstone is a door panel engraved with the words <em>“Here lies the last Wing Lord of Vos, king of the skies. May his spark now know the peace it never had in life.”</em></p><p>There are numerous plaques for scientific awards, but the acid rain has eaten away the name. There are countless miniature jets and other aircraft dotting the ground, one for each life that he saved in the air. Saddest of all is the grave’s guardian, a slender blue mech without a face who must live with the guilt of never having stepped in. Only to be freed by a guilt-ridden medic moved by the dead mech’s words and not freed by the master the dead and he had served for so long.</p><p>It is here Arcee comes every vorn. Recently, she has been joined by a small silver Seekerling with ruby red optics. This time, he will be old enough to understand.</p><p>Sometimes a lone Vehicon drives out to pay his respects. But it is Seekers who come mostly, those who just might understand all the pain living meant for he who lies buried here.</p><p>But today it is The Prime.</p><p>He kneels and weeps for the life he held at gunpoint in the frozen south of Earth. For the mech who suffered the most from Megatron’s rage. For the screams that had been silenced by the very mechs The Prime let fly free.</p><p>He sobs that if only the deceased could see all the good his life has brought, the friendship between a shuttle and a race car, the love and healing between a medic and a femme, the formula that gave a commander back his hand, and a city full of Seekers who wear no badge. Of the secret empty throne that bears his name and always will.</p><p>The Prime cries, but his tears are not enough. It is not his place to grant second life.</p><p>But it is his to bestow honor.</p>
<hr/><p>Once in the distant past, a young Seeker wore a crown.</p><p>Megatron broke it.</p><p>Once, a silver Seeker flew proud.</p><p>Megatron broke him.</p><p>Everything the Seeker did was to ensure his people lived.</p><p>Megatron killed them.</p><p>Once, Starscream was a good mech. But he did not die a sane one.</p><p>Megatron saw to that.</p><p>A shuttle watches with a smile as Knock Out kisses the femme who is now his Conjunx Endura. A trine of Seekers land and announce their intentions to go Neutral and rebuild their home. A small human with pink in her hair learns to fly a fighter jet and dubs it <em>Screamer</em>. A young government agent named Jackson Fowler does his best to give every person a second chance, to find the why behind every story. A pink femme steps off a ship much to the shock of everyone and the joy of a certain ex-archivist.</p><p>These things make Starscream happy.</p><p>He watches, and though he wishes he could be there, he is proud. His people are home, his story is told.</p><p>At last, he knows peace.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>In case it wasn't clear, the summary is the honor Optimus was able to bestow.<br/>I love your wonderful comments, but I please ask they be profanity free. Otherwise they will be deleted. Sorry, but I have younger siblings at home and I wouldn't want them reading something on my tab that I wouldn't want them saying.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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